by S. K. Vaughn
“Not really. I basically did all of that because all I ever wanted to be was an astronaut and I realized that dream would never come true.”
“Pardon me, Stephen, but that sounds a bit wonky.”
“This is Control. She has a point there, Dr. Knox.”
“Control, please switch us to a private channel,” May said, annoyed.
“That’s against—”
“Now, please. I’ll override if we need you.”
“Copy that.”
They heard the switch, and May smiled. “Always wanted to be an astronaut, huh?”
“I know that smile, and it can only mean—”
“Do you trust me?” she interrupted.
“Yes.”
“Good. Because I’m here to make your dreams come true. Time to shake off the science and live a little, Dr. Knox. No point in everyone else having all the fun when this is your baby, after all.”
She released the tether between them.
“Shit,” he said quietly.
“You’re welcome,” she said, drifting away. “On the other side of this ship is the engine deck. Let’s go check it out, make sure these engineers aren’t slacking off.”
“Copy that,” Stephen tried to say confidently.
May took off, moving slowly in that direction, and waved for Stephen to join her. He wanted to tell her to come back, to forget the whole thing, but he couldn’t stomach it. As much as she was giving him a golden opportunity to fulfill a small part of his dream, it was also his opportunity to show her he wasn’t just some gutless pencil-neck. She had never accused him of that, but he’d accused himself on more occasions than he cared to count. Except he felt paralyzed. His fear was so intense that it was hard to even imagine activating his thrusters. A cold sweat was coming on, and his stomach turned sickening carnival loops. Unforeseen disasters could occur on a complex maintenance platform orbiting the moon at over 18,000 miles per hour, and he could visualize them. It was like standing near the open door of an aircraft in flight, waiting to make a parachute jump. On a primordial level, the whole proposition was absurd.
“Come on, Neil Armstrong. I’m waiting,” May said.
The only thought more terrifying than following her was the notion that if he didn’t, she might not consciously hold it against him, but a seed of disappointment might be planted. In the right circumstances, that seed could germinate. Stephen’s mind quickly rendered a summary: Every love story demanded the ultimate sacrifice. Romeo and Juliet were doomed, along with Tristan and Isolde, Odysseus and Penelope, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, and other famous A-list literary couples. For some reason, romantic love was nothing more than a battleground bristling with treachery. Being unwilling to make that sacrifice might be the deal breaker that could inspire May to return to the company of more fearless and heroic suitors.
“Up yours, William Shakespeare,” he whispered to himself.
“What was that?” May asked.
“I’m coming,” Stephen said listlessly.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Stephen used his thrusters, very awkwardly, to follow May. He figured the Control crew was probably amused by his herky-jerky approach, which must look like a crude marionette performance. What in God’s name was he doing? He had nothing to prove to her, or to anyone else. He was a respected scientist overseeing a trillion-dollar deep-space mission.
No, in this moment, he was an astronaut. Neil fucking Armstrong. The thought buoyed him with confidence. That confidence begat elation, and before he knew it, he was actually having more fun than he’d ever had in his life, laughing all the way.
“That’s the spirit,” May said as she saw him cresting the middle of the ship.
“You were right,” he said. “This is absolutely incredible.”
“Of course I was right,” she said. “And you’re doing so well. You look like an old pro. Maybe dial back your thrusters just a smidge, though.”
In all his excitement, Stephen hadn’t noticed he’d been gradually increasing his speed. He could see May, and was coming up on her fairly quickly. He let go of the thruster, but his momentum didn’t change.
“I pulled back, but I’m still coming in a little hot,” he said.
“No problem. Just reverse the thruster, very gently, to slow down,” she instructed.
“Okay. Shit. Too fast.” The short breaths had returned, and he was feeling light-headed.
“Very gently. And breathe,” May said.
He tried, but the rapidly closing space between them caused his adrenaline to spike and he panicked, jamming the reverse thruster too hard. The opposite force threw his torso into a backflip, and his helmet smacked the edge of the fuselage. That blow made him dizzy and forced his body to fly in the opposite direction from the impact, away from the ship. Within seconds he was in a perpetual backflip, getting more nauseated with every turn. He could hear May’s voice shouting something. He could hear Control droning on about something else, but none of it could cut through the sound of his rapid hyperventilation. He lost sight of the ship, then the scaffold, then the hangar and station. The realization that he had drifted into open space spiked his adrenaline again, and the resulting breaths rendered him unconscious.
“Copy, Control,” May said, “Returning to base.”
When Stephen came to, he was in open space. May was directly in front of him, and all he could see behind her was the massive, open face of the moon. He started to panic again.
“It’s okay, love. You’re fine now.”
She turned them slightly sideways and showed him the station, which was in the distance but closing quickly.
“What the hell happened?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, smiling. “But I thought we agreed to no flips or stunts.”
Stephen remembered hitting the reverse thruster too hard. “Jesus, I’m such an idiot.”
“No, to be crystal clear, that title belongs solely to me,” May said. “I should never have pushed you the way I did. I just didn’t anticipate you loving it so much and getting all thruster-happy.”
“Me neither.” Stephen smiled, remembering the feeling. “That was pretty awesome.”
May laughed. “Glad to hear it! But I don’t think my superiors are going to look on this as favorably. Right, Control?”
“Sorry, Commander Knox. We had a brief break in comms due to solar interference. Lost our visual too. Something to report?”
“Only that none of you will ever pay for another drink again in your lives.”
“Copy that,” Control said. “Better hurry back. Those superiors you spoke about are shuttling up as we speak.”
“Thank you, May,” Stephen said, smiling.
“For nearly making you a permanent fixture on the moon?”
Looking at her, he noticed he was hyperaware, transfixed by every detail of her face. The stars reflected in her eyes gave her an ethereal beauty that made his heart ache. Then it came to him: She had made his dream come true. It was a moment he would never forget, and later he would realize it was the moment he fell in love with her. The irony that he had literally “fallen,” perhaps nearly to his death, was not lost on him, and he laughed heartily.
“I’ve always wanted to go to the moon.”
11
Stephen’s office door abruptly opened, plucking him from his reverie, and in strode Robert Warren. He had the patrician air of a blue-blood senator, cheapened by obsessive vanity. Antiaging technology had preserved the sandy-blond hallmarks of his privileged youth, but with a synthetic veneer that appeared almost cadaverous on closer examination.
It was bad enough that Stephen had to answer to men like Robert in the first place. After all, it was his work NASA had funded to investigate. The bitter truth was, and always had been, that science was a slave to money, and with money came people like Robert.
“Morning,” Stephen said wearily.
“I buzzed you earlier about coming by my office,” Robert said as he made himself comfortable in Stephen’s des
k chair.
“Yeah, I ignored that,” Stephen said. “Figured you could use a little exercise.”
One of Robert’s well-manicured eyebrows twitched in disapproval. “I see,” he said, not amused.
Stephen found sick pleasure in forcing Robert to do what he hated the most: be the bearer of bad tidings.
“I know this is hard—”
“I’m not looking for sympathy,” Stephen said tersely.
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“You can pull some strings and let me stay till we know what the hell is going on.”
“Old friend, you flatter me with your overestimation of my authority. As much as I loathe the expression, my hands are tied.”
“Robert, we both know that’s true only when you want to say no to something. You’re a powerful man who gets what he wants, so let’s cut the bullshit, please.”
Stephen hated playing to Robert’s vanity, but it was the one weakness that could almost always be exploited. It wasn’t that Robert was too stupid to know the play; it was that he relished the kowtowing, especially when it came from someone he knew damn well was superior to him in every way.
Robert smiled, happy to have Stephen over a barrel once again.
“Let’s say you’re right,” he said, beginning what he thought was going to be a stirring dialectic. “How would you contribute to the situation? What would I be able to tell Director Foster to convince her to keep you on? Is there some area of expertise you’ve been concealing from me, something that buys you a seat on search and rescue?”
This was another Robert Warren tactic. When cornered, hide behind officialdom, pretend Director Foster actually had some influence over his little fiefdom, that she wasn’t living in constant fear that Robert would use his considerable wealth and power to take her job in the same way a bully would filch a weaker child’s lunch money. He had to know his methods were obvious, but he simply didn’t care. That was the depth of his arrogance. Like the ultraconservative legislators he’d hustled into approving the mission, despite their violent opposition to some of Stephen’s theories, he ruled by sneering condescension.
“Maryam is my wife.”
“Was your wife, Stephen.”
“Are you enjoying yourself?”
“Not even remotely. I’m stating a plain fact. I actually agree that your marriage would have been a highly defensible, albeit unorthodox, reason to keep you on up here. But your divorce filing is common knowledge. The change of heart behind wanting to help her is easy for me to understand, but for others, it will be confusing. For others, it may be viewed as a highly emotional reversal based on regret, which might imply a certain . . . volatility. And we know how NASA feels about volatility, don’t we?”
Stephen’s anger turned to a sort of primal bloodlust that made him feel certain he could bring himself to kill Robert with his bare hands. His rational mind quickly shut that down, as it often did when confronted with “emotional volatility.”
“You certainly have all the answers, don’t you, Robert?” Stephen said with a deeper measure of contempt than he intended.
“Contrary to what you might think, I’m not trying to be unreasonable, and my decision to send you back is by no means arbitrary or negatively motivated. Try to see it from my perspective. This is a colossal crisis, the likes of which NASA has never known. Washington has hit the panic button, and I’m the target of their considerable ire. More important, I bear the full weight of responsibility for every soul on that vessel. I am doing the very best I can to try to manage a horrific situation that gets worse every day. Right now, extreme focus on search and rescue is what’s required, and I’m sorry, but you’re not part of that equation. Please try to understand that.”
Stephen started to formulate a rebuttal, but the predictable futility of it made him feel helpless and weak. He retreated for fear he might lose the chance to even remain tied to the mission back in Houston.
“So that’s it, then?” Stephen said, making sure to apply a tone of defeat.
It worked. Robert relaxed back into the role of benevolent dictator.
“I’m afraid so. Of course, if . . . when the situation returns to normal, we will be having the opposite conversation.”
Robert got up and stood next to Stephen, awkwardly attempting to conjure some sort of fatherly, comforting persona.
“For what it’s worth,” he started, deepening his vocal pitch, “I haven’t given up, and neither has the team. We’re going to do everything in our power to find them—to find May.”
“I’m not questioning that,” Stephen said, wanting the avalanche of bullshit to cease. “I just feel . . . helpless. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like back in Houston, at home, surrounded by things that remind me of her. I might just lose what’s left of my mind. Would you consider allowing me to stay on at Johnson? I was thinking I could analyze the data we were able to collect before . . . keep my mind occupied.”
Robert nodded and patted Stephen on the shoulder. “Of course. In fact, I’ll be spending more time down there as well, attempting to manage the station and the rising tide of discontent in Washington. My door is always open.”
“Thank you,” Stephen said, swallowing gratitude with a good measure of bile.
On the shuttle back to Houston, Stephen watched Wright Station shrink in the distance. Leaving the station created even more distance from May, and it felt like throwing in the towel. He had never been one to abandon anyone in need, especially not the ones he loved. Despite their conflicts and differences, some of them quite harsh, May had never done that to him. Stephen, on the other hand, was plagued by memories of things he had done to turn his back on her, some he could hardly bear to recall . . . some he even blamed for the ultimate demise of their marriage. How would he ever be able to live with himself if he didn’t have a chance to make amends, to reaffirm his true feelings for her? The fear of losing May was eclipsed only by the darkness that came with being unable to answer that question.
“Reentry in ten minutes,” the pilot said. “Please check your safety harnesses. It could get pretty rough.”
12
“Attention,” May stated firmly into the console microphone. “This is Commander Maryam Knox. If you can hear my voice, please find a comms board and respond with your position immediately.”
May had returned to the bridge to try to get the flight deck back in order. Intermittently, she used the PA to call out for survivors, to no avail.
“Eve, I really need to do a physical inspection of all decks. But I think I’ll need to get a bit of a refresher course.”
“Would you like me to load the vessel walk-through program?”
“Yeah, I could probably use a reboot of my own.”
May remembered Eve had mentioned the mission’s background film. Ever since she’d had the chance to think about things other than imminent death, she’d been craving Stephen’s presence and hoping to understand the sense of trepidation his memory was causing. She needed to see him, even if it meant watching one of NASA’s cheesy archive films.
“Eve,” she said in her most casual tone, “let’s also run the mission background video. I have a good handle on all that, but seeing it might help jar some memories loose. Can’t hurt, anyway. Unless I’m worried about dying of boredom.”
“That is funny,” Eve said. “I have seen the mission background film, and I know it is very dull. Good joke.”
“Are you able to laugh at funny things rather than saying they’re funny?”
Eve laughed. It was smooth and nonrobotic, but the intonation was too aggressive.
“Not bad. Needs a little work.”
“Thank you. I am loading the mission background film now. Would you like a snack while you watch?”
“Popcorn?” May asked hopefully.
“I don’t have popcorn, but there are some wasabi-flavored crickets in the bridge storage module. They are high in protein and, I am told, quite delicious.”
“Thank you, but I’ll pass,” May said, trying not to vomit.
The observation window that wrapped around the flight deck dimmed to black and transitioned to a three-dimensional projection screen. A NASA logo appeared, followed by the Europa Mission training video—archival footage, photos, and graphic animations cut to a stirring symphonic score. Vessel and crew images cascaded across the screen, timed to the hearty baritone voiceover narration.
The Stephen Hawking II is a class five deep space research vessel with nine crew members—Commander Maryam Knox, Pilot Jon Escher, Flight Engineer Gabriella Dos Santos, Payload Commander Matthew Gallagher, International Mission Specialist Ada Mazar, International Mission Specialist Yuan Mengzhu, US Air Force Manned Space Flight Engineer Rick Opperman, Payload Specialist Daniela Giliani, and Chief Flight Surgeon Suzanne Dowd—and twenty-six space flight participant researchers: Dr. Ella Taylor—
“Let’s move on to the mission background, please,” May said impatiently. “Dr. Knox’s research.”
The screen changed, and a documentary-style film played with the same narrator.
The Europa Mission was initiated by NASA and an international consortium of allied space programs in February 2058. Based on the research and technological developments of Princeton astrophysicist and astrobiologist Dr. Stephen Knox, the mission will be a historic first-ever expedition to the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter. Within the seven-day landing period, researchers will collect and test extensive ice shelf and atmospheric samples as Europa completes two Jovian orbits.
May paused on Stephen’s image, wanting to reach through the screen to touch his face. He looked young and inspired back then. She restarted the video.
Simultaneously, engineers will test a small-scale prototype of Dr. Knox’s groundbreaking NanoSphere technology—a cloud of molecular nanomachines that store solar energy and radiate it back to the surface at temperatures approaching those on Earth. It is our hope that the NanoSphere will generate enough heat to penetrate the Europan ice shelf, which is, on average, nine to twelve miles thick, and allow researchers to draw water samples from the ocean below. A successful test of this magnitude could pave the way for the future development of a satellite-deployed solar hood that fully surrounds the moon with NanoSphere machines—enabling us to create an artificial Earth-like atmosphere and revolutionize extraterrestrial migration.
